May, 2018

It’s been obvious to many of us that in time Trump will bring violent death down upon America *from within*. A scaled down Civil War is not impossible–at any rate, people are likely to be killed, quite a few people. We noted the foreshadowing of the coming conflict at his campaign rallies where he gleefully incited violence. There are already warnings from right-wing radicals that if there’s an effort to impeach him, liberals will be attacked.

Now Trump is harping on the fantasy that the FBI was used by the (quite unreal) “Deep State” to spy on him. “Spygate” he calls it. This and his other efforts to characterize the Justice Dept as an enemy of his administration –thus, an enemy of the people–creates the illusion, in the minds of his followers, of “America under siege”. A respected arm of government is smeared, and is seen by more and more people as as besieging “real Americans”. Delusional wingnut views of government that used to be in malodorous little pockets are now widely shared–a situation that cries out for violent resistance in the minds of more and more Trump devotees.

Trump’s demagoguery is disseminating anti-government conspiracy theories more widely; they’re cultivated in this atmosphere, they’re given a veneer of respectability and a pseudo validity, and will spread out of their wingnut hothouse and across the land. Combine this with his allying, quite recently and baldly, with the NRA, bringing the popular misreading of Second Amendment to the fore.

Encouraged by the mainstreaming of their shared delusion, his minions will rev up their hulking four by four trucks and load them with weapons; they will, in their fantasy of butthurt “patriotism”, collect explosives and ready them. They will resurrect the memory of Timothy McVeigh and they will whitewash and canonize him and seek to do what he did. Small and large acts of violence will become the norm in “the defense of the second amendment and the President”. This nation is a tinderbox–Trump is becoming a social arsonist.

Now available. SPACESHIP LANDING IN A CEMETERY: Songs of Death and Transcendence. By John Shirley and Jerry King–and a host of hot musicians. CD or download. It’ll be on Amazon and in a couple other venues too. Will be distributed in Europe–soon!–by Black October Records. https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/johnshirleyjerryking

Saw a tiny little bunny in a parking lot. Little brown bunny. Shoulda taken a picture. A very young wild rabbit not much bigger than a kitten. It was next to the car wash where I was waiting, and there was a very large vacant lot with only broken concrete in it, and there were some bushes growing up here and there, and to one side was a major freeway with giant trucks just roaring by.

The traffic was pounding the asphalt. And there was an area near the freeway with a whole lot of blackberry bushes–maybe he came from there. WIld animals live in urban places, around the edges, raccoons galore and possums and raptors and feral cats and rabbits and rodents. This one seemed so much in contrast,so defiant just being there, with cars on a major highway on one side, giant trucks on the freeway on another, a sprawling vacant lot, hideous stripmalls…all that…and the little brown rabbit.

Once, billions of years ago, a vast sea of mind realized that due to inexorable physical laws resulting in “matter”, it was becoming subject to entropy. Time was making it slowly, slowly, very slowly bleed. It set into motion a process to restore itself. The process gave a nudge to the material of the new, expanding universe, with a particular spin on action and reaction, which would cause “matter” to organize itself into what is sometimes called “living organisms”. It did not create the life, it only suggested the possibility, and once it was potentiated it gave it the tiniest but most exquisitely precise of nudges, so that it would develop, in a primitive form that, all on its own; so that it would tend to engage in a process of natural selection, making agglomerations of cooperative “cellular organisms” more likely. This process also led to more longevity and efficiency in some organisms.

Each organism had within it the tiniest speck–sometimes just one micro particle–of the material that becomes mind. This material emanated a very faint energy, as the original mind had supposed it would, which would be harvested, stanching the bleeding of the pondering vastness.

The great sea of mind kept a sort of fifth dimensional tendril in each small organization of “life” so it could see itself and its body, which was the cosmos, from the point of view of that discrete “organism”. This created another source of a very particular type of energy that fed the vast sea of mind. The vast mind knew that the process, once set in motion, which did not need it for any creational input, would eventually create organisms capable of processing the world with more and more refinement. These processes involved conflicts of yes and no, action and reaction, which released fine energies of ever more refinement. The more intelligent the “organism” the more refined this energy. In all the cosmos, there was very little of this refined energy. It was rarer than rareness. The whole process had been set into motion to create it. The participation of the vast mind’s tendrils in the experiential being of the intelligent “organisms” added the other energy form needed; the two together created a third form, which was even more exquisite, and which was needed to knit up the injury caused by the process of entropy.

Additionally, the vast sea of mind “enjoyed” the mirroring of its self through the subjective experience of “the organisms”, which created an endless living cosmic drama, with an unspeakably gigantic display with all the pleasures of music and theater. The vast sea of mind decided that…it was good.

Once, billions of years ago, a vast sea of mind realized that due to inexorable physical laws resulting in “matter”, it was becoming subject to entropy. Time was making it slowly, slowly, very slowly bleed. It set into a motion a process to restore itself. The process gave a nudge to the material of the new, expanding universe, with a particular spin on action and reaction, which would cause “matter” to organize itself into what is sometimes called “living organisms”. It did not create the life, it only suggested the possibility, and once it was potentiated it gave it the tiniest but most exquisitely precise of nudges, so that it would develop, in a primitive form that, all on its own; so that it would tend to engage in a process of natural selection, making agglomerations of cooperative “cellular organisms” more likely. This process also led to more longevity and efficiency in some organisms.

Each organism had within it the tiniest speck–sometimes just one micro particle–of the material that becomes mind. This material emanated a very faint energy, as the original mind had supposed it would, which would be harvested, stanching the bleeding of the pondering vastness.

The great sea of mind kept a sort of fifth dimensional tendril in each small organization of “life” so it could see itself and its body, which was the cosmos, from the point of view of that discrete “organism”. This created another source of a very particular type of energy that fed the vast sea of mind. The vast mind knew that the process, once set in motion, which did not need it for any creational input, would eventually create organisms capable of processing the world with more and more refinement. These processes involved conflicts of yes and no, action and reaction, which released fine energies of ever more refinement. The more intelligent the “organism” the more refined this energy. In all the cosmos, there was very little of this refined energy. It was rarer than rareness. The whole process had been set into motion to create it. The participation of the vast mind’s tendrils in the experiential being of the intelligent “organisms” added the other energy form needed; the two together created a third form, which was even more exquisite, and which was needed to knit up the injury caused by the process of entropy.

Additionally, the vast sea of mind “enjoyed” the mirroring of its self through the subjective experience of “the organisms”, which created an endless living cosmic drama, with an unspeakably gigantic display of all the pleasures of music and theater. The vast sea of mind decided that…it was good.

“right now, this massive black hole is the size of at least 20 billion suns”..

(CNN) Astronomers have found the fastest-growing black hole ever seen in the universe, and they’re calling this one a monster with an appetite. It’s growing so fast it can devour a mass the size of the sun every two days….The discovery of this massive black hole calls the existing science about black holes into question….”

If as this suggests black holes have no “speed limit” and can grow faster and faster, and absorb more and more, can they combine one into the next, can we have one giant black hole? I find myself imagining that the end of the universe (this one) as we know it is not what is usually envisioned but will involve a giant black hole that is, in effect, turning the universe inside out, crushing it within this cosmos encompassing black hole, then compressing it into a cosmic egg which then explodes into another big bang, another universe, another iteration of the eternal kaleidoscope’s shifting.

I doubt Mueller will have provable charges against Trump unless he can show Trump was DIRECTLY involved in money laundering at his hotels. Sure, that crime went on–but prove he knew of it (yes, he did, but prove it). The collusion thing–yes it happened but hard to prove legally, in Trump’s case. He can claim he didn’t know his staff was doing it…the obstruction of Justice is real but too legally ambiguous in his case…I agree with Bill Maher that Trump will not leave office no matter how he’s pressured–he will just dig in his heels and say no.

There are too many people making out like bandits, looting the country under his administration, banking concerns, and so on, and those people push the buttons on Congressmen. So he’ll never be impeached through Congress. However–if Dems take control of congress after November…then maybe….

I believe it’s likely he can only be removed through voting him out in 2020. And the problem with that, at least now, is more people are giving him their approval because they got a small break on their taxes after the tax reform (I know, it’s only temporary). And Trump got lucky on North Korea…so far. The economy is strong in some ways–especially if you’re a person with money to invest. …so Dems will have to work hard to unseat Trump in 2020. You’d think it would be a no brainer, but too many Americans JUST DO NOT CARE that he’s paying off porn stars, that he’s treated women like dirt, that there is corruption swirling around his administration. They only care that they got their small tax break.

I believe that Trump is a criminal who has engaged in money laundering and who is using his office to promote his private business interests; is a serial harasser of women, may have committed rape…Has likely committed treason…Deserves to be in jail…is doing vast damage to the USA and the world through his vindictive deregulation and his idiotic posturing and his “decisions” on Iran and the Paris Climate Accords… But I think it’ll be hard to pry him from office before 2020.

For some people regulations on banking, on business, are “a stage of Communism”. They have a fuzzy idea, of course, as to what Communism is, and they have an equally fuzzy idea as to what regulations are. They seem to believe that regulations disallow capitalism from being capitalism, prevent a market from being a market. Next time I encounter someone with the view that regulations mean that we’re not longer in a capitalistic market place, I’ll resort to the overused but often handy sports metaphor: “Do you like baseball or football or basketball?” They do. “Do you regard them as healthy competition, as really as tough struggling for a win?” Yes. “So how would your favorite sport work out without any rules? If you removed the rules, would baseball be as much fun? Or would it be a chaotic muddle, possibly including violence?” Probably it would be a mess. “Capitalism with regulation is like sports with rules. It makes the game possible. Many rules are about fairness, so it arranges a fair playing field. Competition, marketing, striving to win, are all still part of a regulated capitalism.”

A good many people extolling the new left, the youth-left, and even some older people who should know the definitions of things better, suppose that “capitalism” must always mean an unfair crushing of all underdogs; must mean a flawed system in which the poor always lose. Then you say to some of these very people, (for example),”But you own a coffee house. You’ve innovated a brand of coffee you sell. Isn’t that capitalism?” “No,” they say, “I’m fair to employees and to consumers. I don’t pollute. I don’t discriminate racially.” “That doesn’t keep it from being capitalism. You’re using capital to invest, to make a profit. Only, you’re doing it with a conscience. That’s the best capitalism. Not only is it capitalism–it’s the ideal capitalism.” Again and again I encounter people who sell things–their own books for example–saying that “capitalism” is bad. And they are not selling editions of Das Kapital. They do not know what capitalism actually is–it’s just making a living investing time, labor and resources, to over-simplify. It can be done responsibly or irresponsibly. Good capitalism is carried out responsibly. Talk to them, you find out that many people really, truly, don’t know that.

There is a new phenomenon, shown by recent polls: young people who (seemingly) do not think “Democracy” is a good idea. It turns out they have mixed up the idea of democracy with “government as it is now” and “elections at their worst”, with big money taking over elections and government. That takeover–something we’re struggling to stop now–is partly a consequence of predatory individuals mis-using democracy. But this particular group of young people think that Democracy is only that. It’s synonymous in their minds with bought elections and bad government. They are unaware that it means: “government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.” (Random House Dictionary.) So when they say “not a good thing” in polls, they are not saying what we think they’re saying. They are not actually saying “Dictatorship is better”. They’re not being asked to address the question of what would be better than the damaged Democracy we’re burdened with in the era of big-money campaign financing.

In parallel, the alt-right and their libertarian friends who say “regulation is Communism” are unaware that Communism is: “a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.” They think the word applies to regulations in general.

The very meanings of these powerful words are being lost. Clearly the answer to this muddling of terminology is education. Civics is scarcely in evidence in schools now. That needs to be changed. And a campaign to explain these concepts to those who don’t grasp them should be undertaken.

Internet news, as opposed to newspaper news, is very sloppily put together. It’s hasty, and as a consequence has far more typographical errors and badly thought out headlines. This is the entire headline of an abc news article online: “DNA TEST LINKS WOMAN TO BIOLOGICAL FATHER AND 7 HALF SIBLINGS” – the actual story IS news, as it’s about finding a father and siblings she didn’t knew she had, but the headline…? It’s like– “You’re related to your dad and siblings! News at eleven!” All they had to do is take the time to write the headline so the point of the story is part of it. But no. Don’t have time. The jittery, feeble internet attention spans must have eighty thousand stories a second thrown at them.